Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue

Today we learn from the Court that a State runs afoul of the First Amendment proscription of laws “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” where the State structures its taxing system to the advantage of newspapers. This seems very much akin to protecting something so over-zealously that in the end it is smothered. While the Court purports to rely on the intent of the “Framers of the First Amendment,” I believe it safe to assume that in 1791 “abridge” meant the same thing it means today: to diminish or curtail. Not until the Court’s decision in this case, nearly two centuries after…